Rapturous!

Between this and Whiplash, Chazelle has mastered the wonderful technique of stop-start rhythms in music.

Upon the L.A. freeway—in an exquisite opening shot, the camera pans to reveal a traffic jam. A musical number is suddenly belted out and several passengers get out of their cars and start singing. The camera glides across each new person who announces their own verse and does cartwheels (as it spins around to another) while they all tap dance with choreographic flair. It's not before long that hundreds of people are standing on top of their cars and fuse together in a chorus.

It's a real showcase of the optimistic musical and delivered with crowdpleasing pizzazz. I wouldn't suggest that it sets the actual tone (as a more dramatic cornerstone is embedded in the narrative) but it brings such an elated joy.

One of those passengers is Mia (Emma Stone), a barista and aspiring actress/playwright, who's always leaving work early to do an audition. The other is Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a jazz pianist, who dreams of having his own club. They originally meet in a scuffle amongst honking horns—and hilariously give each other the middle finger!, yet manage to fall in love as they take strolls on L.A.'s spotlit streets.

That's all just a prelude for its glorious ode to the 40's and 50's Hollywood musicals. Nostalgic period detail is an absolute delight as well. Chazelle has crafted an aesthetic that is like a candy-coloured fantasia of wallpaper, murals and spectral lights. Even when Mia and Sebastian are singled out—in a wondrous use of lighting, the background fades and they're given their own solo moment. There's also fond nods to cinema (Mia's apartment even has a poster of The Killers as her three roommates join in a singalong) which takes them into blissful harmony.

Soon after, though, Mia walks along a path and hears a piano being played in a bar. Just before Sebastian is about to be fired by the club's forthright owner (J.K. Simmons), Mia strolls in. It's a beautiful segue in being drawn to Sebastian's talent—which doesn't go as she expects, but is just the outset of where they'll be headed.

One of the absolute funniest sequences in La La Land is at a pool party where Sebastian is playing a synth-keyboard for a shoddy 80's cover band. The familiarity of A Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran" (and how redundant it is with the same piano notes), is delivered in an almost applause-worthy moment that forges Mia and Sebastian's own cold shoulder to one another.

Still, this is old-movie jubilation, and the two of them are able to find a mutual spark. Amongst the glittery lights (filmed in a magenta delirium), they sit, talk, sing and dance. It's staged as an exultant remembrance to how Old Hollywood actors would interact—sly flirt, acerbic jokes and compatible dance moves, while they see that romance is in sight.

Of course, when that romance does occur (as two hands are clenched together at a repertory screening of Rebel Without a Cause), they decide to visit the Griffith Observatory under the planetarium's stars. An utterly gorgeous moment of being swept up (as if they're flying towards a nebula) is their first exchange in which they fall in love.

In the beginning, it's all devoted and simple. Mia chases after her creative needs with a one-woman stage show and Sebastian realizes that classicist jazz isn't working as he tries to pursue a more commercial output. They caress, kiss and have a wonderstuck chemistry. But alas...

The results manage to vary. The question of art as wholesaling is addressed—even if I did see it as a forced complication for their relationship, but at least it's tied into a desperate desire to achieve their dreams. With an R&B-fused-contemporary jazz group called The Messengers (led by John Legend), Sebastian is thrown out of his element. The same can be said for Mia.

While it ultimately borrows from the wrenching indecision that plagued Geneviève and Guy in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the attempt is still admirable. Starcrossed lovers are going through a drawback and it dictates the parallel between real-world and fantasy. There's bittersweet truth to that initial giddiness.

Even yet, just as its sublime opening scene, La La Land concludes with a euphoric moment that hops from the real-world and relies on romantic exultation. In this decorated world, Chazelle brings it to a zenith—just another example of colourful delight and youthful buoyancy, which feels fully deserved.

As for the performances, Stone gives her most impressive work as someone who's full of plucky innocence and distraught doubt. She's got vivacity and it's endearing. She turns chameleonic in the numerous auditions. It's still a hindrance for her and realizes the feeling of a failure who hasn't reached that next step. Gosling is an absolute charmer—finding the juxtaposition between a hopeless romantic and prying jokester, owning every delicate piano key stroke. He also does the most with pensive gazing into the City of Angels and has a conclusive arc that is intensely moving. Between all of this, their chemistry is just joyful to watch as they're engulfed in old-school homage.

The songs are simply incredible, too. The cumulative relentlessness of "Another Day in the Sun", the cute boppity-bop of "Someone in the Crowd", the swooning romance of "A Lovely Night", the catchy whistlin' dixie of "City of Stars" and the solo banger of "Audition (The Fools Who Dream"). Amongst that, composer Justin Hurwitz finds a perfect balance of melodic sweetness and infused melancholy as a duo owns their moment.

For that alone, I'll wholeheartedly hand it to Chazelle for modernizing the musical and relying on Hollywood conventions. He's created a total sugar-rush of delight, glee, romance and resolution. The kind of contemporary movie magic with nostalgia and reverence.